After losing seat in Congress, the former Happy Valley mayor was appointed to Trump’s cabinet.
Oregon’s Lori Chavez-DeRemer was confirmed by the Senate as U.S. labor secretary on Monday. Her cabinet appointment represents a reversal of fortune for the Happy Valley business owner who in November lost a reelection bid after one term representing Oregon’s 5th Congressional District.
As labor secretary, Chavez-DeRemer, 56, will oversee the enforcement of worker protection and workplace safety laws and report the U.S. unemployment rate.
“As promised, I’ll work tirelessly to put American Workers First by fighting for good-paying jobs, safe working conditions, and secure retirement benefits,” she wrote in a message posted to multiple social media sites. “Let’s get to work.”
On Monday, the Senate voted 67-32 to confirm Chavez-DeRemer. Seventeen Democrats joined Republicans the vote to confirm though Oregon’s Ron Wyden and Jeff Merkley were not among them.
With its potential to swing control of Congress, Chavez-DeRemer’s race with Democrat Janelle Bynum drew national attention and visits from high-profile politicians. The two candidates raised a combined $12 million, while outside groups spent more than $20 million on ads in the district, the Oregon Capital Chronicle reports.
A month after the election, Trump announced Chavez-DeRemer was his pick to head the Department of Labor, which has 16,000 employees and a budget of $14 billion.
The Associated Press reports the DOL is one of several government agencies named in lawsuits challenging the authority of billionaire Elon Musk from ordering the layoffs of tens of thousands of federal employees and accessing sensitive government information.
Chavez-DeRemer’s Senate confirmation process was smooth compared with more controversial picks like FBI Director Kash Patel and Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. Three Republicans joined Democrats opposing her confirmation including majority leader Mitch McConnell and Rand Paul.
NPR reports Chavez-DeRemer’s appointment was praised by Teamsters president Sean O’Brien, a vocal Trump supporter. While in Congress, she voted for the union-backed PRO Act, and co-sponsored legislation intended to protect public worker pensions.
Throughout his presidential campaign, Trump promised to protect American jobs and increase the manufacturing sector. And he spoke of ending taxes on tips and overtime.
“Lori’s strong support from both the Business and Labor communities will ensure that the Labor Department can unite Americans of all backgrounds,” Trump writes in a statement released by his campaign.
The daughter of a Teamster, Chavez-DeRemer boasted numerous union endorsements during her election campaigns, and she’s spoken about expanding Trump’s working-class appeal.
“Hardworking Americans finally have a lifeline with the president, and I’d work tirelessly to support his impressive efforts to remake the Republican Party into the Party of the American worker,” she said in a statement.
But Trump, in an August conversation with Elon Musk said striking auto workers should be fired, and who, as president, has made it tougher for employees to unionize, restricted overtime pay and swapped out pro-union members of the National Labor Relations Board.
Chavez-DeRemer was the first woman to represent Oregon in Congress as a Republican, and one of the first two Latinas to do so, along with Andrea Salinas, who was also first elected to the House of Representatives in 2022. And she’s the first woman in her family to attend college, according to her White House bio. She and husband Shawn DeRemer founded an anesthesia services company and several medical clinics in the Pacific Northwest. Before her Congressional run, Chavez-DeRemer served on the city council of Happy Valley and later served two terms as mayor.
